A tall change is in store for a historically low-rise Rosslyn corner.

Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing has filed preliminary plans to redevelop Queens Court, an affordable housing complex at 18th Street North and North Quinn Street, with a 12-story, 250-unit affordable apartment tower, three levels of underground parking and a 9,000-square-foot public park with playground equipment. KGD Architecture designed the building.

The project is key to the Western Rosslyn Area Plan, a strategy largely backed by neighbors (despite some controversy over the loss of park space) and adopted in July 2015 by the Arlington board.

“It is a great testimony to the group of citizens that were engaged in that western Rosslyn study that they wholeheartedly endorsed 250 units,” said Nina Janopaul, APAH CEO. “It’s a hard community to afford that kind of housing, and how wonderful that they embraced APAH Inc.”

The western Rosslyn study area, comprising only five parcels, also calls for a 775-seat secondary school on the Wilson School site, and a mixed-use development in place of 1555 Wilson Blvd. (current home of the Washington Business Journal), which will incorporate a new fire station. The existing Rosslyn Highlands Park will be replaced with a scattering of public open spaces throughout the western Rosslyn study area, including APAH’s property and the school (ballfields).

The western Rosslyn study ran parallel to the larger Rosslyn sector plan update, now approved, which seeks to transform central Rosslyn from a pedestrian-unfriendly, concrete office canyon into a “dynamic place inspired by its diverse mix of people and activity.”

Built in 1941 and acquired by APAH in 1995, Queens Court consists of three buildings totaling 39 units on a roughly 1-acre parcel. Its replacement will be about six times its size.

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